“No! Jason!” Logan shrieked, adding his scream to Chris’s and Leo’s. He tried to brush past Seti to reach Jason, but Seti was as immovable as rock.
“You dare bring war to my doorstep?” Seti bellowed, his face twisting into a mask of rage. Raising his arms, he called out in a language Logan didn’t recognize. The windows of the apartment began to shake, as if being battered by a strong wind. In the next heartbeat they shattered, glass swept inside the apartment by a powerful gust. Howling, the wind whipped through the room, knocking Chris and Leo to the floor.
The fish tank tipped over, its contents cascading over the table in a waterfall to the rug. But instead of soaking into the carpet, the liquid was picked up by the wind, swirling through the air.
Incredibly, the wind and water began to take on a form, a diaphanous bubble that quickly divided in two, like an amoeba. A pair of creatures, made entirely of water and wind and vaguely reminiscent of wolves, took shape. They growled as they slunk next to Seti, chests low to the ground, ears back and teeth bared.
Guns blazed as Joe and Harry pumped several rounds at the terrifying wind-wolves. The bullets passed harmlessly through the watery beasts, lodging in the floor and wall behind them.
A strong hand held Logan back as Seti nodded toward Harry and Joe. “Kill them,” he said simply.
Logan watched from over Seti’s shoulder as the wind-wolves leapt at the intruders. Snarling, snapping their jaws, they pounced on the men, knocking them both to the ground.
Harry and Joe’s screams were gurgled as watery jaws snapped down on their throats, crushing their windpipes. They thrashed beneath the creatures, their arms and legs passing through the beasts without any effect.
It was over quickly. As soon as Harry and Joe stilled, the water-wolves exploded into a spray of water that soaked the bodies. The wind calmed, until the only sound was that of the televised wrestling match and Logan’s heart as it pounded in his ears.
The intruders lay side by side just within the doorway, their bodies completely unmarked. Wide, unfocussed eyes stared at the ceiling, their mouths open in frozen, silent screams. It looked as if both had simply dropped dead in their tracks.
“Jason!” Logan cried as soon as he could find his voice. He didn’t know how Seti had conjured the creatures that had killed the intruders, and he took no time to wonder about it. Not when his best friend was lying on the floor near the door, his life’s blood oozing out of a bullet wound. Logan pushed past Seti, then dropped to his knees next to Jason. “Oh God,” he whispered, looking at the blood that soaked Jason’s shirt. “Oh God…. Jason….”
Chris was the first to gather his wits about him. He had the phone in his hand and was dialing 911, barking their address into the receiver.
Leo sank slowly onto the sofa, his face a pasty white. His hand covered his mouth, his eyes riveted on Jason.
Logan paid neither of them any mind. His attention was focused solely on Jason. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, and his breath gurgled wetly.
“There’s so much blood!” Logan groaned, his voice brittle with grief. “Fuck! This is all my fault! I should never have brought Seti here. I should have never gone snooping in the Vault to begin with! Oh God, Jason, I’m so sorry!” he wept. “Don’t die on us, Jason. You hear me? Don’t you fucking dare die!”
“The ambulance is on the way,” Chris said as he knelt next to Jason. “This isn’t your fault, Logan. It’s Ethan Wilder’s fault. He’s got to be the one behind this—he’s the only one who would know who Seti is and that he’d be with you.”
“I’ll fucking kill that bastard!” Logan sobbed. Strong hands hooked under his arms, pulling him up from the floor despite his protests, and he found himself cocooned in Seti’s arms. “No, let me go, Seti! I have to help Jason!”
“You cannot help him now, Logan. He has begun his journey to the Underworld,” Seti said softly. “May Anubis guide him safely to his new life. May Osiris find his heart worthy of eternal happiness.”
“No!” Logan screamed, struggling to be free of Seti’s embrace. “No! It can’t be! He can’t be dead!”
Chris’s face looked stricken as he glanced up at Logan and nodded slowly.
Grief and guilt tore a hole in Logan’s heart and a ragged scream from his throat as the pain of Jason’s death seared him. Hot tears flowed unchecked down his cheeks as he buried his face against Seti’s neck. “Why Jason? He didn’t have anything to do with this! It’s my fault! I should be the one who’s dead, not him!”
“It is the will of the gods,” Seti answered. “I am sorry I could not protect him.”
As Logan trembled in Seti’s arms, his grief quickly gave way to a terrible, numbing blackness that filled him. It was his fault. It was Seti’s fault. It was Ethan Wilder’s, Perry’s, and God’s fault. It was everyone’s fault but poor Jason, yet he was the one who’d paid the ultimate price.
Outside, the wail of an ambulance and police cars drew near. Blankly, Logan watched Chris step over the dead gunmen, ready to wave the paramedics and police into the apartment. Wrenching himself away from Seti, he said, “Go into the bedroom, Seti. The cops can’t find you here—you don’t have any identification. Don’t let them find you.”
“I will not leave you,” Seti said, shaking his head.
“Please, Seti! Don’t make this harder on me than it already is,” Logan hissed, shoving Seti hard. His anger bubbled up through the grief, aimed at the one nearest him. “This is all your fault, anyway! We were fine until I got involved with you! Get away from me!”
“Logan—”
“Get the fuck away from me, Seti!” Logan cried, wrenching his arm free from Seti’s hand. “Don’t fucking touch me! Just leave me alone!”
Logan watched Seti back away. His expression seemed confused as he walked into the bedroom. He didn’t say a word as he closed the door behind him. Logan turned back toward the door, his chest hitching as his gaze fell on Jason’s body.
Completely consumed by grief, Logan didn’t realize that he was moving until he found himself at the feet of the dead gunmen. Bending down, he picked up one of the guns. It felt inordinately heavy in his hand, cold metal that matched the iciness that gripped his heart. He stepped over the bodies into the hallway.
“Logan? Where are you going?” he heard Chris ask. Fingers clutched at his sleeve, pulling him back. But Chris’s voice sounded far away, his words not registering through Logan’s grief and guilt. He jerked his arm free from Chris’s hand and kept walking, out of the apartment and down the stairs. Shoving the gun into his pocket, he made his way to the service entrance at the rear of the building and slipped outside.
Chapter Fifteen
IT SHOULD have been a minor annoyance, no more irritating than the bite of a flea.
The barest twinge that should have gone unnoticed in the vast, thickly crowded expanse of Setekh’s memory. As a god who had existed since nearly the Beginning, his memories were piled one atop the other in stacks so dense and high that he had forgotten most of them. It was a tiny, insignificant ripple that should only have been acknowledged in the deepest level of his subconscious, if that. Certainly nothing that should have disturbed him.
A curse, laid long ago and forgotten, had been broken.
Setekh had cast thousands, perhaps millions of curses during the course of his existence, in every shape and form imaginable. Boils, drought, famine, disease, and a host of other horrors had been laid on one human’s head or another for their failings. At times, Setekh had cursed entire populaces into oblivion. The breaking of one of the plethora of curses he’d cast should not have caused him even minor distress.
And yet this particular twinge did not escape his notice. It bore upon it the mark of a man whose ancestors had been honored by Setekh, gifted by him, and who had worshiped Setekh in return. A man who, although he bore Setekh’s name, had flouted his esteemed heritage and had defied Setekh. One who had sought to turn the very powers given him by Setekh against the god.<
br />
Seti.
Setekh’s eyes blazed a bright, fiery red, his muscles tensing as he remembered the human sorcerer. How he had stood against Setekh, belligerent, arrogant, refusing to accept Setekh’s will. Daring to seek revenge. Even now, after five millennia, the audacity of the man still rankled.
Rising from his throne, Setekh stalked through the alabaster and marble halls of his palace, his long crocodilian jaws snapping in irritation.
Setekh’s palatial residence rose high into the air like a glittering white jewel, a collection of exquisite, gleaming white domes, parapets, balustrades, and arches. The palace’s beauty was at odds with the hideousness of its king, belying his vicious and unpredictable nature. Aside from his magnificent home, there was nothing beautiful or peaceful about Setekh, god of chaos and disorder.
The finest rugs, handwoven in brilliant jewel tones, cushioned his feet. Bowls of rare flowers lent their delicate fragrance to the air. Golden ewers of rich, sweet wine and platters of juicy red meat graced his tables in a never-depleting bounty. Bedding of the softest, sheerest silk and the finest linen draped his couches. Music drifted in low, soft notes throughout the air from the flutes and lyres of Setekh’s musicians. Beautiful women and handsome men lay on couches scattered throughout Setekh’s halls, ready to slake his lust at the crook of his finger.
And yet, surrounding his palace of dazzling opulence and splendor was a dismal and noxious landscape that stretched in every direction for as far as the eye could see. Bleak and inhospitable, the Underworld’s harsh, unforgiving landscape made a sharp contrast to the beauty of Setekh’s palatial abode.
Stepping outside the palace onto the broad steps, Setekh’s nostrils were at once assaulted by the reek of decay. Foul and viscous water, the color of blood, flowed in a river of death that wound its way through the bleak and barren landscape in a lazy ribbon. Its banks were piled high with the bones of those who had not managed to successfully navigate the dangerous journey through the Underworld to the palace of Osiris to be judged.
Only after Osiris had weighed their hearts against the Feather of Purity would a man or woman be judged worthy or unworthy. If the scales were balanced, then the penitent would be rewarded in paradise, the riches accumulated in life following them into their new existence. If the heart weighed heavy, its owner would face an eternity of torment, his soul eaten by Ammut, Devourer of the Dead. Those who did not complete the journey but fell by the wayside ceased to exist altogether. Their ka disintegrated into ashes, scattered by the hot wind, their bodies torn apart, fodder for the beasts of the Underworld.
Those who had been properly buried, whose organs had been removed and stored in canopic jars and their bodies mummified, who had the proper spells and prayers, might secure the assistance of Anubis to guide them on their journey.
Those who did not took their chances.
He could hear the hissing of the crocodiles that nested on the river’s banks, fearsome creatures, larger and more deadly by far than any that swam the Nile. Snakes, beetles, jackals, and all other manner of loathsome beasts prowled the waist-high grasses that spread from the river like a cancer, choking the land.
The wind that blew was searing hot and malodorous as heavy black storm clouds thickened in the red sky, pulsing with lightning. They were Setekh’s contribution to the hell-spawned landscape. The storms were his children. His servants.
A scream split the air, drawing the crocs from their nests. Water boiled with the resulting feeding frenzy. Fresh meat, Setekh thought, another pathetic soul succumbing to the dangers of the journey into the afterlife.
Weak, as Setekh himself had once been.
Cursing himself for his failure, he howled, shaking the very foundations of his demesne. He should have cursed Seti for eternity rather than a mere five thousand years. The limit had been reached. Seti had awoken, returned to life and its many pleasures.
“Setekh? What’s got your thong in a knot this morning? You’re making enough noise to wake the dead.” Osiris chuckled. His voice, as smooth as silk and as cool as water from a deep well, reached Set’s ears from afar, echoing in his mind. “Get it? Wake the dead.” He chuckled. “I crack myself up, sometimes.”
Osiris had taken an unfathomable liking to human pop culture of the twenty-first century. He sprinkled his vocabulary liberally with references whenever possible, especially since he knew it nettled Setekh. “Please tell me a human isn’t the reason for this little tantrum, Setekh.”
Setekh met Osiris’s comments with a wall of silence. Unfortunately that was enough to give Osiris his answer.
“Ah, so it is a human. Really, Setekh. You never change. You’ve always let them get under your skin.”
“He bore my name. I made him a king among his kind, and he repaid me by taking my gifts and throwing them in my face!”
“Oh hell no! Are we talking about Seti? Again? I thought you cursed him!”
“I did.”
“Let me guess—you didn’t make the curse permanent. You put a time limit on it, and now it’s up, right? Honestly, Setekh, you never think things through,” Osiris chided.
“This matter does not concern you, brother,” Setekh grumbled. He returned to the main hall, slumping down onto his throne. His fingers gripped the arms of the throne until his knuckles whitened as he struggled to contain the fury that rose within him.
“Sure it does, brother. Ever since you expedited my way into the afterlife, I’ve made your business, my business.”
The gentle jibe at their history together only served to fuel the rage that had been steadily building within Setekh’s heart. It had been a misunderstanding that had caused Setekh to murder his eldest brother, Osiris, and Osiris well knew it. Setekh’s wife, Nephthys, (a coldhearted, scheming bitch if ever there was one), had seduced Osiris by taking the form of Osiris’s wife, Isis. Infuriated by what Setekh had perceived to be Osiris’s betrayal, Setekh had killed and dismembered his brother. Afterward, he’d scattered the pieces to the four corners of the earth.
It had taken Isis a good long while to find them all and put Osiris back together again.
Osiris knew that Setekh had been deceived, but still he had never let Setekh forget the incident. He had forced Setekh to live with the consequences of his actions ever since, barring him from ever stepping foot in Paradise. Setekh had been bade build his palace—while as opulent as any other god’s—amid the horrors of the Underworld, where Osiris had decreed he live for all time.
“This is my affair, brother,” Setekh replied, failing to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “I will see to it as I deem fit.”
“You’ve already ‘seen to it.’ This particular human has been punished enough for whatever crimes you think he committed against you. He’s paid his dues, Setekh. Did his time. Let him live his life in peace,” Osiris chided. “Don’t make me go Rambo on your ass.”
Setekh growled, his eyes blazing. “Yes, Osiris,” he hissed through gritted teeth. Every muscle in his body clenched, protesting his acquiescence. But Setekh knew better than to oppose his powerful brother—at least openly. What he did when Osiris was otherwise occupied was another story.
“Why do I not believe you?”
“I give you my word that I will not touch Seti,” Setekh said, his eyes narrowing. “He will be free to live out his days in whichever way he sees fit.” And so he would. There were other ways to cut a man, ways that would leave him bleeding and broken without ever having been touched, and Setekh was an expert in all of them.
He had done it before.
He could do it again.
Would do it again.
For the first time since realizing that the curse he’d laid on Seti’s head had been broken, Setekh smiled.
Chapter Sixteen
WALKING WITH a quick, purposeful stride, although consciously his mind churned in turmoil, Logan found himself standing at the entrance to one of the most easily recognizable buildings in the city. Seventy-two stories of glass and steel, t
he Wilder Executive Tower rose as a sleek black monolith, an obsidian spear driven deep into the heart of the city.
Logan barely remembered leaving Jason’s apartment house or crossing any of the busy streets to arrive at Wilder’s doorstep. Everything since the shooting was a blur, a maddening maelstrom of petrifying fear, white-hot pain, and smothering guilt. Logan bore the weight of his emotions like a man staggering under a burden so heavy that it threatened to drive him to his knees at any moment.
The only thing that kept him upright was his rage.
Black and as sharp as a razor, his anger dwarfed everything else he was feeling. Fury at Wilder, at the gunmen, at Seti, and most of all at himself disallowed rational thinking, allowing only one thought, vague and shapeless but nonetheless consuming, to emerge.
Revenge.
Narrowing his eyes, Logan slipped his hand into his pocket, fondling the cold blue steel that weighed it down. It was the same gun that had taken Jason’s life. Logan would see to it that it took another before long—that of the man who was ultimately responsible for Logan’s pain. He had no set plan in mind, just an overriding need to deliver justice, to avenge, to share the pain that filled him to overflowing.
Glancing up, Logan craned his neck, trying to see the top of the building. It seemed to stretch forever, the upper floors barely visible from the ground. Somewhere up there, in that black tower, sat the man whose soul was stained with Jason’s blood.
Wilder.
“I’m coming for you, you bastard,” Logan whispered. His voice sounded like a stranger’s to his ears—low, gravelly, and filled with a hate that up until today, Logan would have sworn he was incapable of harboring.
“Hey. I’m Jason. Welcome to Freshman Hell. Got any weed?”
The ghost of Jason’s voice whispered in Logan’s head, catching him off guard. His breath hitched as fresh tears burned in his eyes, remembering their first meeting. Had it only been six years ago that Logan had walked into the dorms on his first day in college and found that he was to share a room with a towheaded young man with a shit-eating grin and a photographic memory?
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